Dan v.s. Matt Scoresheet
Dan: 6
Matt: 6
Ties: 8

Kelly Time Sheet
For entertainment on the rare occasions that Mr. Kelly is late for class, a time sheet was started up adding all the seconds and minutes that he is late together. The time sheet is currently at:
49 minutes and 58 seconds

Various Other Counted Things
Most people should be able to figure out what these are.
D.: 16
T.: 26
Year: 13

Well for whatever reason, you’re in IB and that means you’ve had to do more work in the past few years than NASA did to get a man to the moon. This page will make you further question why in fact you are in IB so if you’re this close to dropping out, go research your extended essay now and don’t look at this page!

And as any IB student knows, you must define your terms before beginning anything so here goes:
IB-International Baccalaureate: A program created somewhere in Europe a long time ago which takes everything your average student is supposed to know and multiplies it by ten.
IB Student: One who is smart enough to get into IB yet dumb enough to go into IB.
Full IB Student: An IB student who has decided that since a full slate of IB courses is not enough, that he or she will also write a 4,000 word essay, various ToK essays and will willfully do 150 hours of community service. These students can be subdivided into English full IBs and French full IBs. The only difference between these two groups other than language is that the French full IBs actually get a spare.
Extended Essay: This is supposed to be the crowning achievement of the IB student. 4,000 words in length, the full IB student has nearly nine months to research and write it. Ambitious students will write it over Christmas break, not so ambitious students will write it the night before it is due.
Sleep: A rare thing which most IB students have no knowledge of. Rumour has it that non-IB students do this at night instead of homework.

Now that you have a good idea of crucial terminology, here are the few points you will need to survive in IB:
1. Recommended Literature: You will be assigned to read a wide variety of novels promoting such down to earth values as: wife selling, wife beating and having multiple wives. Some of the characters you will meet will truly inspire you such as the troubled pedophile or the many, many drunkards you will meet. However in order to survive in IB, you will need to find the time to read a wide variety of other great literary works. First and foremost is 1984. Although it will likely be assigned at some point, be sure to read it before you enter the IB program since it will be quoted to adnauseum during your stay in IB. Another book which you must read if: "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". Although it is not referred to in nearly as many classes as 1984, it should be noted that references are made to it once every 2.3 ToK classes on average.
2. General Homework: One advantage to IB is that teachers assume you will work hard just because you are an IB student. I know it sounds strange but even those who have been teaching for many, many years will make this mistake. For this reason homework is rarely checked and as a result, your homework load will be quite less than that of normal students. The key is to evaluate the classes, such as math, where it is necessary to do the homework if you want to pass tests. Once this is known, you can do the homework from these classes in other less important ones, such as French. For this reason, it is critical to get a seat near the back of the class, preferably with a large student in front of you.
3. Major Projects: These are the ones which will kill you. Extended Essay, ToK Essays, English Essays, Social Essays, Memoir, World Lit Assignments, Labs, Group 4 Project… Up until mid-November you can usually just do them the weekend before they are due but then it gets hectic with many deadlines in January and February. There are generally two schools of thought regarding this. One is to space out your work, meaning that every week you work a bit on all these projects and as a result, you will not have to be rushed when they are due. This is called the "6 Months of Hell" approach. The other school believes in the "6 Weeks Where You’ll Wish You Were Dead" approach. For this approach you do all your work over Christmas and in January, during which time you will not be able to sleep, eat or do anything fun. Most students realizing that 6 weeks is less than 6 months go for the latter approach although the former is not unheard of.
4. Teachers: The thing to understand regarding IB teachers is that they are not paid any more for teaching IB so they much actually enjoy it for whatever reason. Some believe that they frontal lobes of the brain were damaged at some point hampering judgment but for whatever the reason you must know how to use them to your advantage. Sucking up is a good strategy to get good marks and it is best just to employ normal procedure which you would use in a regular class here. The main area where IB differs is in getting extensions for projects. This will be discussed in the extension section.
5. Extensions: This is perhaps the biggest factor which will affect your survival in IB. Getting projects pushed back as far as possible so you have more time to do them. The key is getting precedence on an extension so go for an all out push when your teacher assigns you your first major project of the year. Go to your teacher with a small group as a symbol of class support for the extension and make sure that students who the teacher does not despise do most of the talking. There are two strategies which have been proven to work time and time again when it comes to getting an extension. The first is to say that given more time, you will hand in a better quality assignment. This rarely works by itself so you’re best to go for the second technique, mainly complaining that you’ve had too much work to do in other subjects. IB teachers hang around together so don’t lie about your work load, it’s probably large enough already, merely embellish it a little bit, calling a quiz a test and so on. At this point the teacher will say it’s not fair to the students who have completed the work on time and then you just scream out "BONUS MARKS" as loud as you can. If all else fails, try tears.

I hope this is a good starter in your quest to survive IB. I’ll be to add more of my infinite wisdom to this site in the near future so keep checking back here. Also will put up those "Signs you’ve been in IB too long" lists if I ever get the time but seeing as how I’m in full IB, don’t count on it. If you have any keys to surviving IB, then give me an e-mail and I will add them here as well.
canada1_eh@hotmail.com